MOSCOW, December 9 (Sputnik) — Representatives of the EU member states involved in the recently scrapped South Stream project have called on the European Commission to clarify the situation, a statement published on the commission's official website Tuesday said.
“Member States directly concerned and the Vice-President [for Energy Union Maros Sefcovic] discussed the announcement by the Russian Federation and Gazprom to stop the South Stream project. Member States directly concerned took note of the currently unofficial nature of this announcement and invited the Vice-President to clarify the situation with the Russian side,” Sefcovic and representatives of Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Romania and Slovenia said in a joint statement.
6 December 2014, 10:16 GMT
Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia would abandon the South Stream pipeline project, designed to bring Russian natural gas to a number of EU countries via a new route under the Black Sea bypassing Ukraine, citing the European Commission's stance on the project as one of the reasons behind the decision.
The European Commission had long claimed that the pipeline was in breach of the European Union's Third Energy Package, which states that owning a pipeline and producing the gas that flows through it is an illegal conflict of interest.
